Stellar Search

“An India Family Business Survey found that 68% of promoters expect veto power on key decisions even after hiring external leaders. In promoter-led setups, this expectation has a measurable consequence. Where decision boundaries remain unclear, CEO turnover is nearly 42% higher.

From an executive search perspective, this isn’t surprising.

Promoters often want independent and high-calibre leaders but at the same time, they remain deeply hands-on in reviews, escalations, and final calls. Autonomy is promised, but oversight continues. The dual role of owner and operator becomes difficult to separate in practice.

This tension rarely shows up during hiring. It emerges only once the leader is in seat. Many exits within 12–18 months are not driven by capability gaps, but by ambiguity around authority, influence, and decision ownership.

Where outcomes are more stable, promoter involvement is designed deliberately rather than exercised informally. The two most successful examples of successful transitions are at the Mahindra Group, the transition to Anish Shah as the first non-family CEO followed a phased handover, with Anand Mahindra retaining strategic oversight while operational authority was clearly transferred.

Similarly, at Marico Limited, a gradual transition from Harsh Mariwala to Saugata Gupta helped establish professional stability within a promoter-led structure.

In my experience, the strongest outcomes occur when promoter involvement is clear. This typically shows up through:

-> Explicit decision-rights discussions before hiring

-> Benchmarking institutionalised promoter–CEO frameworks, such as those at the Tata Group, where oversight and ex*****on are structurally separated

In hiring, the dual role of promoters works best when ownership oversight and executive authority are consciously separated, not left to interpretation.”

- Anisha Bhayana

𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐤 𝐨𝐟 Shailja Dutt:

“Since the dawn of time, the stories told about women and men have not travelled the same road.

Power and courage sit easily on male shoulders in narratives, while women carrying the same weight are turned into symbols, threats or exceptions.

Let’s start with a young ruler in a fragile kingdom. Historians describe Cleopatra as a skilled leader fluent in several languages & trained in statecraft.

Yet in the telling & retelling of her story, she became known more for beauty & romantic alliances than the rule that held Egypt together through crisis.

Most stories remember Joan of Arc as a saintly girl in armour. Closer to home, Rani Lakshmibai is often reduced to a warrior queen on horseback.

Reality was tougher.

Joan stepped in when generals lost nerve, helped lift the siege of Orléans & pushed France to fight on.

Lakshmibai held her state when others surrendered hope & led forces in 1857 while carrying the responsibility of her people.

Marie Curie transformed physics & chemistry and became the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, yet the French Academy of Sciences denied her membership in favour of a less decorated male colleague.

Rosalind Franklin’s X ray image of DNA, known as Photo 51, gave James Watson and Francis Crick crucial data for the double helix model, yet the 1962 Nobel Prize went to them & Maurice Wilkins.

These are not just mere 'women's issues'. They are metrics of how accurately any organization or society values talent and contribution.

One would think that history won’t repeat itself yet this pattern continues in our workplaces.

One interesting study showed that women negotiate for promotions and pay rises as often as men, yet women who do are about 30 percent more likely to be described as bossy. Performance is filtered through perception, & that filter is still tilted even today.

For me, this topic is not theoretical. I sit across women who run businesses, guide teams, hold families together & keep communities functioning.

Strength shows up in the choices they make when no one is watching, in the independence they maintain even when support is uneven & in the way they move forward while carrying responsibilities that others often take for granted.

The myth of the strong, independent woman says she is rare, difficult, sometimes even unrelatable. The reality is that she is everywhere.

She just does not ask for admiration.
She asks for fair space, fair pay and fair judgement.

And she does her job to a standard few can match while clearing paths for those who follow.

History has already shown what women achieve. The present confirms it every day. What remains unresolved is the story we tell about them.

When we stop using outdated myths to explain their success & start crediting their choices, their judgement & their work, a better future takes shape.

Which version of that story will you choose to carry forward?”

Recently, I read a study indicating that only about one in five new hires is rated an unequivocal success.

In my experience, that staggering failure rate exists for one reason above all: we underestimate the complexity of true alignment, especially the alignment between what a role really demands and what we expect a leader’s capabilities to deliver.

I've seen it happen repeatedly: the role is well-defined, the candidate is strong, and the intent from both sides is genuine.

Yet, something still doesn't click.

And almost every time, the root of the failure was a gap in clarity and context. The expectations built around the role, the speed of change, and the level of ambiguity often move in a different rhythm than the capabilities we have hired for.

Sometimes, the business evolves faster than the job description. But more often, it's the "cultural rhythm" that is how decisions are truly made, how teams escalate issues, what the founder values most, that moves differently than the new leader expects.

Capability alone can't bridge that gap when expectations are misaligned.

These experiences have taught me to pay closer attention to the signals beneath the surface:

-> The organisation’s real priorities.

-> Its comfort with change.

-> The leader’s natural operating style.

When these align, leaders accelerate impact. When they don’t, the struggle appears early.

Failure, in that sense, isn’t a setback, it’s a blueprint for setting clearer expectations, matching capabilities more honestly, and building better alignment the next time.